Spies Should Be Neither Seen Nor Heard
by LauraLovegoodWrites
Summary: Twins Hazel and Lucy are back for another year at Gallagher Academy. Follow their junior year as they encounter Blackthorne, sublevel two and new missions. Full summary inside. Future fic without spoilers and involving a few old characters.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: If I owned Gallagher Girls and was Ally Carter I sure as hell wouldn't be posting my ideas on the internet. So as you may have assumed, I'm not Ally Carter.**

**Summary: Twins Lucy and Hazel are entering their junior year at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. And this means a few things. As well as the normal drama's that come with going to a school for spies, there will be sublevel two, cover stories and an ongoing war (read: flirtation) between cove-ops teachers Professor Grant Newman and Professor Rebecca Baxter. And of course, Blackthorne boys. A running commentary on spy school. **

**This story contains no spoilers. **

There was not a school day I loved nor despised as much as a day like today. A day where the sign in the dining hall requested that we speak English-Australian. It was a day where I didn't have to put on an American accent or use their slang but it was also a day I had to be horrified by the attempts at an Aussie accent done by my classmates. While my sister Hazel was quite happy to try to help people with their accents I was slightly more sadistic, preferring instead to laugh at most, cringe at the truly pathetic and throw in as much obscure slang as I could to confuse everyone. Really, the most fun to be had was through inventing your own slang. The expressions of confusion were truly priceless.

"G'day Lucy!" Came my twin sister's voice from behind me. I was sitting in the dining hall reading and trying to ignore the truly horrendous accents being done by the seventh graders while eating my breakfast. It horrified me that my sister who was as Australian as me still used words like G'day even though she knew no-one actually talks like that in Australia. And as much fun as it was to invent slang, I preferred the avoidance of it altogether on days that we weren't designated to speak with our Aussie accents. Hazel on the other hand, talked like this whenever she could. Ugh.

I shook my head in disdain ignoring her and continuing to read. Hazel was undisturbed by my lack of response, having grown accustomed to it, and continued to chatter away happily, thankfully not using slang terms.

"Aren't you excited to be back Lucy? I mean I know we've already been back a few days but it's so good to see everyone again. I already miss Seth though it's so sad that he lives so far away but of course he'd freak out if he knew I was studying to be a spy. When do you think I'll see him next? Maybe Christmas? Oooh! What do you want for Christmas this year, I want to get my prezzie shopping out the way really early this year. Ah! I forgot! Today's our first cove-ops lesson of our junior year! Do you know who's teaching us this year? Can you believe we'll finally get to see sublevel 2 today Lulu? I-"

She could've gone on forever but this was where I chose to cut her off. "Don't. Call. Me. Lulu." I said in my most menacing voice. I loved her (most of the time) but my parents calling me Lucinda had been cruel enough without Hazel making up a full Oxford Dictionary of embarrassing nicknames for the name.

She pouted flicking her dark red hair over her shoulder. "But I'm older! I can call you what I like. When we're away from mum and dad I'm responsible for you and therefore I have the right to call you Lulu if I want!"

That was a low blow. She was only seven minutes older than me but she'd never let me forget it. "We're twins! That means that when you get down to it we were conceived at the same time. And just because you're older doesn't mean you're more mature. And maturity is a better show of responsibility than age." I said without ever actually looking up from my book.

"Do you want to take this to the P&E barn?" She asked clearly getting riled up.

I slammed my book shut looked up at her standing behind me and raised one eyebrow happy today I was allowed to use Aussie slang. "Bring it on Ranga!"

If there was one thing I could say that would Hazel as angry as when she reminded me she was older was when I called her a ranga.

"I'm not a ranga!" She shouted her voice getting quite shrill. "My hair is brown, not red!"

"Whatever helps you sleep at night tomato." I said.

Letting out a shriek of indignation she stormed out of the dining hall. If she hadn't played the I'm-older-than-you card I would've felt bad but as it was I just felt a kind of smug, self-satisfied amusement.

"That was mean." Stephanie, who'd followed Hazel in, said in a reasonable facsimile of an Aussie accent. She was one of my roommates along with Hazel and my best friend Emma.

"I tend to disagree." I said in a haughty tone. We were sisters, bickering was part of our jobs. She'd get over it.

"It's fair dinkum beaut to see you again Professor Baxter!" I heard Hazels voice chirping at the front of the hall. And of course we all looked up. Inside the doorway was a real life legend we'd only met once before.

Rebecca Baxter. Ex-student. Spy extraordinaire. Completely gorgeous woman. And the rumoured inventor of the wi-fi the school used that wasn't effected by the signal scramblers. Oh my God. We'd all met her once before at a careers night where she'd been a representative of MI6.

There had been rumours she'd be here, but at any girls school, let alone one where eavesdropping is both a science and an art form, things had a way of becoming wildly misconstrued and it was always better never to believe something until you'd seen the proof. But there she was. And obviously as she was on crutches with a massive cast around her leg she wasn't on her way out to a mission. Unless of course, that was her cover. You never knew… But what seemed most likely was that the rumours were (for once) true and she was here to teach.

Oh my God. We were going to be taught by Rebecca freaking Baxter! I slammed my book closed and along with the rest of my class who'd been sitting at the table make my way over to the doorway where Bex (as she quickly informed us we should call her) was regaling everyone with an amazing story of the mission she'd broken her leg on involving a croquet mallet, a stale Easter egg and a bottle of Chanel no.5 perfume being used for purposes other than those of scent.

I stared at the apple with doubt. There was nothing particularly distinguishing about the apple that made it seem suspicious. It was just a vibe I was getting from it. Yes I was vibing an apple. Get over it. I needed something to amuse myself with. I grabbed the much less dodgy looking orange next to it from the fruit ball and went over to sit with the few of my classmates who were actually up this early on a Saturday morning.

Looks of confusion followed my arriving at the table at seven o'clock on a Saturday. Everyone knew I was a late sleeper. The truth of the matter was that I'd just never gone to sleep the night before. At first it had just been because I'd been totally engrossed in the book I was reading and by the time I finished it three AM was just around the corner. I'd been reading in one of the old forgotten rooms upstairs I'd discovered last year. The walls had been papered in sheets rambling about codes and pigeons and Blackthorne's freaky neatness.

There were also scribbling's of fieldwork reports about the operatives Sutton, Morgan, Baxter and McHenry. This room was one of legend. It was the hideout four of the most famous Gallagher girls in recent history had used as their headquarters. It now lay dusty and forgotten. I could tell from the dust coating everything when I'd discovered it that I'd been the first when there since them. Aside from doing a little spring cleaning so I wasn't constantly sneezing I left it relatively undisturbed and began using it as a place to get away.

I have lots of friends and there's no-one I don't get along with I'm just not really a people person so going to boarding school where there was nowhere to escape to alone had been hard and was the reason I'd began exploring the mansion. Another of the gems this room had yielded was a map signed by the famous Chameleon of the many passage ways around the castle. And exploring all that the map had revealed was what I'd been doing when it got to three AM and I'd finished my book. When in the passages time seemed to pass differently and by the time I emerged it was already six thirty. What was the point of going to sleep?

It was the weekend after what was potentially the most boring and average first week back in all of Gallagher history. Nothing had happened. Well, I guess that wasn't strictly true. We'd seen sublevel two. And a seven grader had touched the sword and set her hair on fire. But that was normal. We'd found out that Bex was going to be co-teaching cove-ops with Professor Newman until she could go back into the field.

The first lesson with them had been very… interesting. Instead of it actually being a lesson it had turned into a debate between the two of them over who would be the better agent for a honey-pot mission.

This debate ended when Bex uttered the phrase. "Bloody hell Grant! I have push ups bra's and while you're a looker you're a bit rubbish in the sack!" This caused a look of disappointment to come across the faces of most of the class and a blush to rise in Grant's cheeks. Everyone knew they had history. She was his guide around the school in what was the first ever Blackthorne exchange. Now it was a regular thing that happened every year. The full class of Blackthorne juniors spent the year here with us. It was one of the things that was going to make this year very, memorable.

"Ladies!" Professor Newman said coming into the hall and addressing the half of the junior class that was there for the first time since the incident. We all giggled a little as since then Bex had tried to back-step and explain how she didn't actually know she was just guessing. It had probably made it just little bit worse. "Go get dressed ladies and be back down here in fifteen minutes! We're going on a fieldtrip and I doubt you wish to wear your pyjamas on it. Go wake your classmates, tell them the same thing."

Great, the day after I'd had no sleep was the day we had a cove-ops fieldtrip. Awesome.

We were blindfolded and loaded onto a helicopter and straight away we knew what was going on. This happened every year. It was actually famous now, like a rite of passage at Gallagher. No-one knew what went on but we knew it happened to every junior class. I was ready to finally have the mystery removed.

Even though the helicopter was loud I still slept. I'd made sure to be sitting next to Emma so I could snooze on her shoulder. Having slept through the flight however I had no idea how much time had passed when we arrived and were shepherded into a van, still blindfolded. We weren't allowed to take them off until the fan slowed to a stop.

We took the blindfolds off and were given coms units in the form of small stud earrings Hazel and I had made as a joint extra credit assignment freshman year. Pretty, glittery and useful. Mine had a sparkly grey stone similar in colour to my eyes that I loved instantly and pushed through the holes in my ears with the intention of never giving them back.

As soon as all the coms were handed out, Professor Newman's voice crackled through them and into our ears in a manner that was slightly disconcerting. "Ladies, your mission today is simple. Lose your tail. They could be anyone doing anything; the point is, with a tail, you're not going to know. Is that business man running late for his train or is he waiting to take you out? How about that lady, is she really pregnant or is that a cover designed to gain your sympathy?"

"That's actually not a bad idea." We all heard Steph murmur to Hazel who had to stifle her giggles.

"The point is ladies, in this line of work, it's not all about being able to get information, but being able to make sure they don't have any on you. Or even worse, make sure they don't have you." With those last words of 'wisdom' static crackled through our coms and his voice disappeared.

"What Grant –the melodramatic git— meant to say," Bex said rolling her eyes at his dramatics, "is that, today, you will have a task that seems simple, but the very few people can do let alone people as young as you." I wasn't sure whether this particular phrase was the truth or whether it was thrown in with the knowledge we would take this as a challenge. I thought it could be both. "Arrive at the rendezvous point alone and I will admire you for years ladies, as when I was your age and had this same mission I couldn't. Good luck."

This didn't give me great hope. "Pair up girls and off you go." She said handing and envelope to Ally and throwing the doors open. We were at the mall. The mall of America that is.

"It's a picture of Dorothy's red shoes. It says 'There's no place like home. Meet me at the ruby shoes at 4 o'clock.'" She read out loud, her voice quivering slightly.

"Well Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." I muttered to myself as I climbed out of the van.

"Ooh! Look at the pretty cupcakes Emma! Can we buy one please please!" I usually prided myself on never using sentences I believed would have an explanation mark when written out, enthusiasm wasn't really my thing, but for pretty sugar covered baked goods I would make an exception. And after all, our cover was that we were normal Aussie tourists checking out the sites. For me it wasn't totally a cover.

We only had one hour left before we had to be at the ruby slippers and I was sure we weren't clear yet. We'd done a lot to get rid of our tails. Slipping a barcoded item into one of their coat pockets as they tried to follow us out of a souvenir shop had been a stroke of genius on Em's part and I liked to believe they were still having trouble with the burly security guy who had responded to the shops alarm. I was glad that this was happening on a weekend and not a school day. I hated to think of how much harder this would've been had we been wearing our school uniforms.

We had an hour left and I knew exactly what we needed to do. I'd just spotted our tail in the reflection of the bakery. Who said you couldn't admire the cupcakes at the same time as checking out your surroundings? He was tall, buff, tan and had that annoying surfer boy cliché look everyone assumed was synonymous with Australian guy. And I knew him.

"When I turn around I need you to turn in the opposite direction. Be careful not to pick up another tail. I'll meet you at the ruby shoes in an hour. Trust me on this one." I murmured to Em quickly.

With a quick squeeze of her hand I pulled out my phone and pretended to be texting away on it deliberately turning and walking straight into the surfer boy. I jump back and look up at him apologising profusely as I watch out the corner of my eye as Emma makes her escape.

"Bloody hell mate, I'm such a klutz!" I said making sure my accent was obvious.

"That's fine. Sorry. I've gotta go." He said in an American accent. As if I needed anymore confirmation. Hastily he made to walk around me eyes still on Emma.

"Oh my God! Is that you Seth?" I asked grabbing his arm as Emma rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight. Me knowing his name finally grabbed his attention and he finally glanced down to see who the hell the annoying Aussie tourist attached to his arm was. "What are you doing here?" I asked injecting much too much enthusiasm into my voice for a boy who annoyed the Christ out of me.

He was too young to be an actual agent and this made me come to a realisation. It all seemed brutally obvious now. Blackthorne. Whenever the juniors came back from this particular mission the boys came within a week. This was their mission as much as it was ours. They were meant to tail us. I still couldn't believe Seth was one though.

The only thing I didn't get was why he didn't seem to take an interest in the fact that I, a subject, was talking directly to him. Oh. My. God. He still hadn't realised I was one of the Gallagher Girls. This was going to be fun!

I could see an internal battle waging behind his eyes. He could talk to me, pretend the American accent I'd heard had never happened and find out why his girlfriend's twin—and therefore, undoubtedly, his girlfriend—was so far away from Tasmania and the boarding school they both supposedly attended while also having to come up with a reason he was there. Or he could pretend he didn't know what I was talking about, he was just some random I'd mistaken for someone I knew.

The idiot went for option 1.

"Hey Lucy!" he said with enthusiasm so fake it made Barbie seem less plastic. "What are you doing here?" His Aussie accent was back in place and the easy transition made me wonder where he was truly from. I linked my arm through his and started us walking in the opposite direction to the meeting point.

"Mum and dad decided we should all go on a holiday together. It was very spur of the moment." It was a really dodgy excuse but it didn't really matter. As soon as Seth had chosen to find out why I was here, he'd lost to me. "Hazel is going to be so excited that you're here as well. I should call her and she can come and meet us! Why are you here actually?" I knew I was running out of time, but while I had him linked through my arm no-one was going to look at us twice.

"Uh, I'm, um, here, with my, uh, school. Yeah. I'm here with my school." I honestly wondered how he'd gotten to come on a mission like this when he had no ability to lie.

"Wait here a moment." I said parking him in front of a toilet block I knew I could get a good view of from around the corner with my compact. "I'll just be a second and call Hazel to meet us here. She'll come straight away."

Before he could say anything more I ducked around the corner and pulled out my compact positioning it so I had a good view of his face. I couldn't hear him where I was but I'd always had a talent for lip reading.

I couldn't be sure but I thought what he saying into the pair of sunnies the unsubtle idiot was holding to his mouth was "I lost eyeball a while back man. And worse than that, my girlfriend is here. I'm so ducked." I crinkled my eyebrows at that last part. Ducked? Oh, oh.

"This is Night Owl. Guys, Blackthorne is here. I report this is Night Owl with proof that some of our tails are very young and very annoying Blackthorne boys look out." I said into my coms. A chorus of shocked explanations followed by general ascent that the message had been received.

I peered around the corner again and sure enough Seth was still standing there awkwardly picking at a loose thread on his shirt. Poor bastard. Oh well. I walked off.

Fifteen minutes later and with exactly twenty-three seconds to spare I sidled up to the exhibition. Huddled around it was the majority of my class with only Hazel missing. As I arrived I was regaled with tales of how after my warning nearly everyone had made it without a tail. I had a theory of what had happened to my sister, the only one who still hadn't shown up, and as if on cue Hazel appeared, Seth attached to her arm.

I whacked my head into a brick wall.

"Hey guys! Look who I found! This is my boyfriend Seth!"

As she announced this Professor Newman stepped into view walking towards us followed by Bex propped up only by her crutches and sheer will power.

"You've done very well ladies. Or, at least, most of you have." He said raising an eyebrow at Hazel who was too busy staring dreamily at Seth to notice.

"I think we'll have to change this mission soon Grant. More and more of them are actually completing it every year." She says in a way that makes me unsure whether this is a good or a bad thing. I get that feeling a lot around Bex.

By this stage we weren't paying any attention. Instead we'd all turned our focus to the much more interesting argument going on between Hazel and Seth.

"I thought you went to boarding school in Tasmania?" He said scratching his head and looking anywhere but at her.

"And I thought you were meant to be spending this year at boarding school in Queensland?" She said hands on her hips and lips pouted. Yes, there was actual pout-age.

"Bloody hell, this year sure as hell just got a lot more interesting." I muttered to Emma.

**AN: So this is going to be a story I hope to be updating fairly regularly and promise to actually keep at. It may later on become a joint project with a friend of mine who goes under the fanfic name of special-rock. As the story is about a pair of twins we plan on writing chapters from each twins perspective. I'll take the chapters from Lucy's POV and special-rock will take those from Hazels.**

**Please review with your suggestions and whether or not you'd like to see Hazels POV. Or just review to tell me what you think. Basically, please review otherwise I get depressed and don't post anything new for months and months. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: If I was Ally Carter, well, I wouldn't be posting my stuff here. I don't own the setting only the characters that aren't Bex and Grant and plot line and anything else that appears in this story but not in the books.**

"Ladies, well that was interesting wasn't it?" Grant said as the helicopter touched back down at school.

"Oh shut up Grant." Bex said in her thick British accent. "Just because your school lost for once…" She said winking at us. I knew this didn't happen very often. The juniors always came back looking shell shocked and dejected.

We were shocked, but not because we'd lost. We hadn't. We were shocked because we'd won. Well that and the fact that Hazel had a massive screaming match Seth in front of the ruby slippers which had ended with them making out and Bex having to wedge her crutches between them while Bex guffawed and told them to get a room.

We knew it would only be about a week before Blackthorne's juniors moved in, but damn was that week long. I didn't know if I was happy about that or not.

**Lucy's list of Pro's and Cons for the week before Blackthorne arriving taking forever:**

**PRO: **No boys at the school allows for girls to actually focus on work.

**CON: **Anticipation of boy's arrival means girls don't focus.

**PRO: **Knowing when they'd arrive allows for sufficient to bug – with mikes not cams—their suites.

**CON: **If they were as good as everyone said these bugs wouldn't last long.

**PRO: **Boys can be bloody annoying and it is therefore best to put off their arrival as long as possible.

**CON: **Hazel is even more annoying when she knows she'll see Seth soon.

On Saturday evening, exactly a week after we'd kicked Blackthorne's ass they still hadn't arrived. This worried me. Not because I was so eager for them to arrive but because I wasn't eager for them to arrive in any way that would be a surprise and having been on high all week. It was getting tiring.

I was pacing in our dorm room as lights out approached, though we usually ignored it anyway. My three roommates were lounging on their beds doing various activities. Stephanie Walters—niece of the infamous Tina Walters and Hazel's best friend—was slowly working her way through a massive pile of magazines as an attempt at extra-credit for their relatively underutilised possibilities for coded messages. Emma was braiding her long black hair while reciting out loud possible combinations of the periodic table she could use to create a bomb. Hazel was texting.

It had taken months of research, trial and error and the breaking of more than a few school rules, but we'd finally cracked it; we'd built a microchip that when inserted and properly installed into a phone, circumnavigates all the Gallagher signal jammers. Score for us. While the school remained unaware of this invention we made a quite a killing selling it to younger students. We were currently working on an upgrade that would allow us to run our own phone company for Gallagher girls. Through hacking Langley we knew we'd be able to get cheap rates. This was how Hazel was texting Seth.

"O-M-G!" Hazel exclaimed. I paused my pacing to give her a disdainful look that combined both my curiosity and horror at her use of "O-M-G". Then horror of all horrors, she started to squeal. In excitement. The horror!

"He's here! He's here, he's here, he's here!" She was dancing around the room knocking things over and not realising it, just repeating that phrase over and over. "They're rappelling onto the roof now. Awww, he signed it off 'Love Seth' he's so adorable."

That was what she took from that sentence? I loved my sister and usually, she was a highly intelligent if not overly enthusiastic and slightly annoying girl. That was when she'd had nothing to do with Seth for a while. Around him she lost the ability to use her brain.

Shaking my head I walked out into the junior's dormitory hallway. Walking down the corridor I knocked on all the doors, before standing at the end of it.

Slowly, girls began to come to their doors, poking heads out to see what I wanted. My classmates were in the various stages of getting ready for bed. Alicia even had her toothbrush in her mouth which was foaming at the corner a little like a rabid animal.

"They're here." I said to the silent stares of my class mates. This was met with more silence and blank stare, meanwhile, god-only-knows how many highly trained teenage boys were rappelling onto our roof. Not cool girls, not cool. "The BOYS!" I said with a wave of my arms in a huge gesture.

And it was like someone had pressed the reset button them as they all came back to life in a series of high pitch squeals. At least I'd got a reaction. Admittedly, now about half of the girls were sprinting back into their rooms to change into something that would undoubtedly make me blush just to look at.

Time for a trick it had taken me months to master; I held two fingers to my mouth and let out as loud a wolf-whistle as I could manage.

It had the desired effect and once again the entire junior class was staring at me.

"They're on our turf now guys. Rappelling out of a helicopter onto our roof as we speak and I for one am not happy about this. This is ours and we have to show them that. Any suggestions?" I said pacing down the corridor like a sergeant inspecting my troops. They all looked liked I'd slapped a Napine patch onto their foreheads.

Slow applause came from the opposite end of the hall. We all swivelled to see who it was.

Bex leant against the wall somehow managing to look calm, cool and completely badass even while wearing a pair of hot pink pyjamas and on crutches. "I have an idea." She said in a way that when paired with her slow smirk, British accent and wink was completely terrifying.

"Why are we doing this again?" Hazel asked.

"Because we need to show them that losing to us is going to become a common occurrence and they're going to have to learn to deal with it and not trying to get revenge by rappelling onto our roof. I mean what is wrong with the doors people?" I said ranting a little.

"Yeah, but, Seth is going to get into trouble for telling me they were rappelling in!" She asked in a whining voice.

"How sad." I raised an eyebrow.

As soon as Bex had explained her plan to us we'd all quickly changed into stretchy black clothes. We were now crowded around the only doorway that lead from the mansions roof to inside. Chances were they'd assumed we were asleep and weren't going to bother to try to enter through the windows.

And sure enough, moments later the door began to open and the loud obnoxious laugh of a teenage boy crept through. I looked away from Hazel, placing my hands on my hips and keeping an eyebrow raised.

"Hello boys," I said as they entered the building and milled around obviously shocked we'd been waiting there. "Fancy seeing you here."

One boy was pushing through the others to the front. The boy was so tall that when he broke off from the other boys to stand in front of me, I had to take a step back to keep his face in my eyesight.

"Yeah, well, we just thought it'd be fun to _drop by_." He said staring down at me. His classmates guffawed at his word choice and a smirk crossed his angular face. He shook his head at them when he saw my mouth opening to talk, telling them to be quiet and proving my theory that he was indeed the leader of their team. A lock of his longish brown hair had fallen in front of blue eyes, which could've been warm but were corrupted by caution. Smart boy.

"How do you boys feel about a little game of chess?"

"Chess?" He repeated raising his eyebrows at me.

"Chess. Unless, of course, you're too scared." I said making to turn away. If they were anything like us, if he was anything like me, that was a challenge that couldn't be ignored.

Not bothering to check with his group he'd said "Fine. Chess it is." The Blackthorne Boy's behind him looked confused.

"Just so you know, we have our own way of playing."

With a resigned sigh he said, "What're the rules?"

"The rules are simple, everyone has a chess piece. The aim is like real chess, to get all the opposition teams pieces. You must have your piece on you at all times and it can't be in anywhere crude. If I see anyone with a chess piece down their pants you will be automatically disqualified. Seriously guys, none of us want to put our hands in your pants. Except maybe Hazel with Seth. The piece you are dictates who you can challenge. You can challenge anyone lower than you. If you have a piece higher than the person challenging you, you have the option to decline. If you're lower, sorry mate, you've got to spar. To take someone else's piece, you have to literally _take_ their piece. Keep it clean though everyone. Girls, this mean no groin shots, guys if you grope any of us the rest of us will beat the crap out of you together. Seriously we'll take turn trying to break you open like a piñata and not in a pleasant way. Get the picture? Good. The game ends when either of the kings is taken. Rankings go: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawns. And the boundary for the game is the mansion. We begin in fifteen minutes. Good luck."

"What's our strategy?" Asked Emma, ever the practical one.

I was tucking hair up under a black cap as the class discussed who would be which piece. Beside me, Hazel was doing the same. While she had long red hair mine was short and brunette. Our hair was the only feature that allowed people to distinguish between us with any semblance of ease. That and our personalities. Our eyes were slightly different but the school was dark and we knew that from a distance no-one would be able to tell. This was going to work to our advantage.

"I want king." I said as soon as I'd tucked all my hair up.

"Was that you Hazel?" Asked Alicia who was in charge of assigning all the pieces. She was squinting at me as though if she focussed hard enough a giant flashing neon sign would appear pointing at me and saying "LUCY!" It didn't but my raised eyebrow and scornful expression was probably good enough to prove it wasn't my happy-go-lucky sister.

"You know that pretentious jerk who did the speaking will be king. I want to spar against him." I said. "Only if you guys think I can take him though." I said winking at Alicia.

At our school everyone was good at everything (pretty much) but had one thing they were exceptionally exceptional at. For me that was P and E. Alicia was constantly being paired to spar with me as she was the second in the class but was yet to actually beat me.

I knew that no-one would object to my request and various noises of ascent were heard around the room. Alicia handed me, with a blush colouring her cheeks, the small piece of carved dark marble. The rest of the group then started dividing the remaining pieces. Hazel ended up with a knight, Em a pawn (she wasn't a great fighter), Alicia with queen and Stephanie with a bishop.

At the designated time we'd all taken up positions connected by out sparkly comms earrings. Hazel was with me in my hideout; she'd always known about it but had never bothered to come up. Now we were here for two reasons; in the first few minutes casualties would abound and we wanted to stay out of the bloodbath as long as possible. Revealing who was your king was not a good idea. We also wanted to check my bugs. I'd told the girls about them after carefully making sure the rules I'd laid out for the boy's hadn't said anything about what could be called cheating. Actually I'd done quite the opposite and excluded any mentions of cheating at all.

I tuned into my bugs expecting one of two things. One, complete silence which would mean they were scheming elsewhere or two, their voices and plans. I was hoping for two but expecting one. What I was not expecting was static. My mikes hadn't just been disabled, they'd been destroyed. That was the only way I'd be getting this sound. If they'd been taken out though that meant the boys had been in the room and there would be some kind of recording.

I rewound back through it as Hazel looked on with curiosity. There came a point where I could hear laughter and someone talking so I stopped rewinding it and played it back. The pompous guy who was the boys leaders voice boomed through the speaker.

"Hey Wallaby, I know you planted these bugs and would be willing to bet you're trying to listen to our planning. We're not that rookie though. What I wanted to tell you though Australia is: Game on."

**A/N: Please review this chapter no matter whether you loved it or hated it, or didn't even read it, just review! Thanks to the people who reviewed my last chapter. I love you very much and just gave you a virtual hug. **

**So, next chapter will be the game and it's going to be fun! If you didn't get it, which wouldn't shock me, my own game is confusing me, feel free to PM me or ask in a review and I'll do my best to explain. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I didn't write Gallagher Girls, if I had Zach would be in love with a girl called Laura not one called Cammie. Everything that's in the books belongs to Ally Carter. All I own are my original characters and the plot.**

**A/N: So I'm hoping to get another chapter up later this week but if I don't I won't actually be able to post anything until at least July 13 as I'm going on a trip to Europe (YAY!) Just know I haven't abandoned the story I just don't have time nor internet to post anything. Also, major thanks to everyone who's reviewed this story particularly ****angel4eva-15**** who has reviewed both my previous chapters. I'm offering free virtual unicorns to anyone who reviews this chapter! So, yeah, please read and review!**

Well that had turned out to be a relatively pointless exercise. He'd already taken out our bugs. And he'd guessed I'd be behind it. Damn this guy was starting to annoy me. Even though we hadn't confirmed it like I'd hoped, I was sure he was going to be the boy's king. While we had the advantage of having lived in this mansion for years, knowing many—no-one would ever know them all—of its secrets, there was no doubt in my mind that in the weeks before they'd arrived here they would've been studying floor plans . He was going to be somewhere safe, and probably high up. And I was going to be the only one who could take him out.

"So what's the plan sis?" Hazel asked me recognizing the scheming look in my eye.

"I think I know where he'll be." I said flicking through a floor plan of the mansion in my head. "How do you feel about a little trickery?"

Walking through this particular passage way was never a pleasant task but this time I was so focused on keeping up with the deaths from both teams through the comms that the spider webs and dank smell of mildew barely registered with me.

Both teams only have fifteen players as that's how many were in out classes. This meant there were only a few pawns. Pawns were also always the first to be targeted and while we had stuck Em one of our worst fighters as a pawn all the others were some of our best fighters. Challenging a pawn thinking they would be easy to take was the worst move they could make; after all, it was underestimating a Gallagher Girl. And the reports coming through my comms were saying this was exactly what they'd done.

Gallagher had taken nine of their pieces already and it was only ten minutes in. The number we had taken shocked me but they had taken seven of ours and by the sounds Alicia was making were about to take an eighth. Hazel and I were obviously still in it as was Steph. Em was long gone and Alicia was on her way to joining the deceased amongst us.

I was sure I knew where he was but I couldn't end the game unless I knew we had a lead on them. The game ended when one of the kings was taken out. If the king was smart they didn't accept any challenges unless it was from the other king, in which case they couldn't decline. No-one had seen nor taken Blackthornes king yet. Seth however, who had comically been made queen had been taken out by Angela, one of our best fighters who was a pawn and was now supposedly moping around petulantly.

I knew what I had to do however. So I kept pushing through the cobwebs.

There was only a small crack between the stone door and the actual wall but it was enough to see through. This was a room that was clearly marked on all the floor plans of the school. It was one of the towers in the mansion and the highest point in the school. It only had one exit that was obvious. And my entry obviously. There was one set of stairs that wound up to the room meaning you could hear whoever was coming. If you knew of the passageway I'd used this was great as you could escape. If not, well, at least you had a good heads up.

As I stood in the tunnel in the wall peering out through the crack I could see a hooded figure all in black. And while I wasn't sure I had a good feeling this was him, the pretentious jerk was going to get what was coming to him.

The footsteps of someone coming up the stairs were echoing up and I watched as his back stiffened.

Hazel stepped into the room dressed in the exact same clothing as me. From a distance anyone would think she was me. That was until they saw the eyes. Hers were a deep, dark blue you could possibly drown in. Mine on the other hand were such a pale blue it was startling and often referred to as grey.

This was all part of the plan. I'd been careful when explaining the rules. What we were planning wasn't cheating, it was strategic. He was no doubt going to challenge Hazel thinking she was me and therefore king, or he was going to accept her challenge thinking she was me and therefore king. Either way, they were going to spar. Then, I would come out of my hiding place and challenge him. Technically he couldn't reject my challenge and there was no rule saying he couldn't take us both on at the same time. Being twins meant Hazel and I had a uncanny sense of where the other was and what they were going to do next. This meant when we teamed up we were practically invincible. He was screwed.

Only, instead of challenging him Hazel ran up to him, threw her arms around his neck and started kissing him passionately. What. The. Hell.

And then his hood fell back. The hair wasn't brown but blonde. It was Seth.

I'd like to say I kept my calm. But, well, while Hazel has the red hair, I'm the one with a temper. I swore under my breathe and kicked the wall then swearing again, louder this time, as a jolt of pain rippled up my leg.

"You should wash that mouth of yours out with soap, it's filthy." A playful and condescending voice said out of the shadows. Stepping into the slither of light sneaking through the crack in the wall I'd been peering through, I could see this was the boy I'd thought Seth was. "I feel like I should've brought some popcorn with me if we're going to be watching a rom-com together." He said nodding to where Hazel and Seth were still making-out passionately.

I'm speechless for a minute wondering how everything could've become so screwed up. It wasn't really much of a mystery actually. We'd underestimated them. Then I regained my talent for sarcasm and satirical wit and once again all was right with the world.

"As much fun as it is to keep referring to you as Pretentious Condescending Dickhead I think it would be easier if you just told me your name. Then I can start coming up with more suitable nicknames. You know, ones that are alliterations or rhyme." I said.

"How about we make a bargain Wallaby? If you beat me when we spar I'll tell you my name." He said and I couldn't help the irritated twitch of my eye when he called me that again.

"Deal." I said without even considering it.

"Someone's confident." He said raising an eyebrow. "Shall we spar then?"

"I accept your challenge. However, I would like to change locations. I want everyone to be witness when I kick your ass." Without waiting for him to agree I slip out of the passageway and into the room, walking straight down the stairs completely ignoring the gyrating couple.

I stalked straight past all the people at the base of the stairs. Being the middle of the night, when we'd started the game most of the student body had been in their dorms, but the noise we'd made had changed that and they were all crowding around the most intense of the spars. As I walked past them all and down the corridors with Pretentious Condescending Dickhead following me we started to attract a crowd.

When I was finally in the middle of the foyer, the closest large open space I could think of I spun on my heels to face him and straight away throw out a kick intended for his stomach, He hadn't seen it coming until the last second but that had been enough for him to move slightly and cause my heel to glance off the side of what I could feel were some very hard abs. Damn. I tried not to be distracted and think about that but me telling myself to focus took up the moment of my time he needed to throw a punch into my shoulder.

I acted like I lost my balance for a second and pretended to crumple to the ground instead going into a crouch from which I quickly extend a leg and trip him making a grab for the chess piece in his left hand with my right, which wasn't holding mine. I hadn't bothered to confirm it before but I could now see that as I'd suspected, he held the king. Seeing what I was reaching for he pulls his hand back at the last second this time genuinely causing me to collapse onto him.

I'd been extending so far to reach the piece that when I'd lost my balance and fell on him it was at such an angle as to press my chest in his face. Awkward. I attempt to jump back up so as to put an end to this situation that deserved my cringing and blushing, but instead he rolls us so he's on top and attempts to pin my arms down so as to grab my piece. I'm not that easy to take down.

I slid my left arm, the one with the chess piece under my body so he can't get to it and throw my head forward so that it collides with his. While this hurt me I'd braced myself for it. He hadn't and the surprise he got was his weakness. He relaxed his grip on my right wrist and the pressure he'd been putting on my shoulder. Wrapping my legs around his waist I use a lot of energy to flip his bulk off of me. I spring back to my feet knowing that on the ground he had the advantage. While we're standing I'm able to dodge out of his range.

He's slower to climb back to his feet and I attempt to stand on his wrist as he gets up. Choosing to drop his chess piece momentarily he dragged me back to the floor by grabbing my ankle. I fell at an awkward angle unable to get my hand underneath me in any way that would help absorb the impact. Vaguely I hear something crack and register pain but am so focused on the fight and so hopped up on adrenaline I hardly notice.

I'm cradling my left arm under my body and the can feel where the king piece is moulding into my stomach. I recognise that I can hardly move my left arm and have to bite my lip to stop from crying out in pain when he put his weight on my again to keep me down while trying to make a grab and my chess piece. I could've made a big deal of my injury and forfeited or had him surrender for unfair play but I had too much pride for that. No way was I going to win by default. I was going to beat him fair and square. I throw as much force as I can muster pinned as I was into elbowing him in the solar plexus. I feel reasonably satisfied when I hear him groan in pain and shuffle his weight. He moved just enough for me to wriggle out from under him.

Cradling my useless left arm to my chest I push back to my feet and watch him lithely jump to his feet. We circle each other. I'm intensely aware of the fact that he still hadn't picked up his piece after dropping it to drag me down. It was at the very centre point between us and we both knew that whoever bent to grab it would be taken out by the other.

I stepped towards him at the same moment he steps towards me. I can see the muscles in his arms ripple as he went to pull it back to throw another punch at me. But I'm faster. I spin around and into a round house kick that clips him in the forehead. Not enough to knock him out but definitely enough to stun him. I quickly duck down to pick up his piece and hold it up triumphantly as I back away.

He's staring at me with a look of shock and a tad bit of admiration as a cheer goes up from the assembled crowd of Gallagher girls. We're both breathing heavily and staring at each other. He looks like he has something to say. Just as he opens his mouth to say something to me Emma comes up from behind me and throws her arm around my neck in a congratulatory hug. I let out a cry as an intense pain shoots through me.

Now that a little of the adrenaline has faded I can feel the pain radiating from my collar bone. Gently I feel around the bone and can feel it's odd angle. A bend where it should be straight and then I recall hearing that crack.

"You broke my collar bone you ass hat!" I exclaimed glaring at him.

He looks genuinely upset at this and comes closer to me to make sure I'm okay. "I'm sorry." He said.

"For what?" I asked curiously. "You don't really have anything to apologise for, this wasn't deliberate and it was my falling not you that broke my bone, it is actually broken." Don't take the wrong impression from me saying that to him. I still didn't like him. But what I like even less than him was people apologising when they had no reason to.

"I'm sorry for underestimating you Wallaby." He said seeming to realise I didn't want his apology for a broken bone but would gladly accept it for low expectations.

"Well that's a mistake you'll never make again." I said quietly

"I definitely won't. And as promised: My name is James." He gave me a warm, almost nervous smile instead of the smirk I'd already learnt to associate with him.

I turn away quickly so he wouldn't see the annoying and completely traitorous blush that I could feel spreading across my cheeks at that smile.

"So now the real question is, who the hell won?" I asked turning back to the crowd where Emma and one of the Blackthorne Boy's had been counting the pieces. The game had ended as soon as I'd grabbed James chess piece. But that didn't mean we'd won.

**So who do you think won? I had to leave at least that little bit hanging :D Review and let me know who you think won as well as what you thought of this chapter! I love hearing what you guys think and that is really one of the major things that keeps me writing these fics. That and a deep love of reading and writing. SO please, if you want to see more chapters review!**


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